Any chance of PHPEd availability on the Mac OSX platform? It has really become addictive to me, and silly as it may sound, not being able to use PHPEd would be a major snag to me abandoning 15yrs of Windows to make the switch.

Reading this thread, it wasn't clear to me if this is already available, but I couldn't find it at the nusphere site.

You can use the server-side debugger on OS X--which is what the thread you to which you linked was discussing--but PhpED itself is only available for Windows and Linux. It's too bad, too, as the Mac is such a great PHP development platform. I'd *love* to see a Mac version, and would snap it up were it available.

any news on this?

Why? Serious question, do you have a real reason or do you just feel the need to advertise your choice of O/S.

it just is (yeah i'm a mac owner )

I am thinking about switching to Mac, so yea a Mac version would be nice, but It is not the most important feature request for me.

I would much more like to see the license system and obfuscator for Nucoder implemented, along with other requested improvements for the editor.

But in long term I think the mac platform will become more and more popular.

To start, it's a real Unix-type OS, which means that PHP itself runs better on it. Although the situation has improved in recent versions, there was a time when the PHP manual was full of "this doesn't work on Windows" warnings, and to this day, most heavy PHP servers are not Windows, which means that that version gets less testing, etc. Heck, the PHP API for things like file access is really tailored to the Unix model. The same is true of the databases (like MySQL) with which PHP is most often used, as well as Apache. If you're deploying to a Unix-type server, you should ideally develop on one, too.

Being a Unix machine also means that on the Mac, you have full access to all the usual tools without having to mess with something like Cygwin. Some benefits that come from this:

- No need for NuSphere to develop and maintain their own SSH client. Instead, just use OpenSSH, which is provided with the system. This also means automatic server config and password/key sharing with any other clients on the system, such as standalone SSH clients and text editors that support SFTP. The days of generating keys in proprietary formats for each client: gone! The days of updating all of them when something changes: gone!

- No need for NuSphere to develop and maintain their own file synching functionality. Instead, use the extremely powerful rsync. All the features people are asking for in synching, and more, instantly available.

- NuSphere doesn't need to keep bundling their own copy of PHP with the IDE. Instead, they can just use the native one bundled with the system.

- No need for NuSphere to develop and maintain their own SSH terminal client. OS X has a very nice terminal of its own in every installation.

The list goes on. Basically, for all the reasons that Linux is so great for PHP development, so is the Mac, but the Mac brings along a wonderful, consistent UI and mainstream software compatibility. There are also tons of benefits that don't directly derive from OS X being a Unix-type OS:

- Want to use some other editor, and just let PhpED serve as the glue? There's a way to do this very effectively on the Mac - external editor support is a mainstay feature of every IDE.

- Want to have PhpED remember your account passwords? This isn't secure (nor recommended by NuSphere) on Windows, but on the Mac, the IDE can use the system Keychain for this, which is secure and extremely simple to use.

- Unlike Windows, the Mac OS can actively notify the IDE when a file changes for any reason - there goes a handful of settings and timers to control this functionality now, replaced by something that Just Works. People on here have requested things like auto-uploading images when they've been changed, but that's hard to do automatically on Windows. On the Mac, it's trivial.

- Lots of people want a scripting engine in PhpED. On the Mac, NuSphere can do this without writing their own engine just by supporting AppleScript. Basic support essentially comes free, and full support comes comparatively easily with a properly factored application architecture. Also, simple user-action play-backs is already there for free for every app in Leopard. It's also trivial to tie into the Unix layer, so you could easily write Unix scripts to automate all sorts of things using PHP, Bash, Perl, Python, or whatever suits your fancy. And, the Unix scripts can be tightly integrated with AppleScript scripts, providing even more power. Imagine writing a script that runs and verifies your app's automated tests, updates the source repository, deploys the app to the server, and sends out the appropriate notifications and updates the appropriate logs.

- UI. UI is huge. With PhpED stuck in Windows' MDI interface, it's currently impossible to view and work on multiple files simultaneously within the IDE, at least not without dealing with extremely clumsy workarounds like floating windows or multiple instances. On the Mac, PhpED would be set free to open as many windows as it wants, wherever it wants. This is a **huge** productivity boost that just can't be appreciated until you've been able to do it enough to really get used to it. It's even bigger when you have multiple monitors; in Windows, your monitors let you more effectively multitask across applications, but on the Mac, they let you do it *within* applications as well. You can easily look at many source files, logs, terminals, etc., without any workarounds. You can still dock windows together with a tabbed interface if you want, but you no longer have to worry about keeping the whole collection inside a single parent window. I can't emphasize how important this is - when I started developing on Windows after having long used the Mac, I felt like a track star with my legs tied together. It was crazy, and still is. Companies are probably wasting billions of dollars per year having their developers work in such a restrictive UI.

I could go on and on, but you get the point - yes, there really are reasons.

Bob, nice post but nothing really supports what you are trying to suggest, just more preference on your part, a few points.

I use PHPEd on a Windows machine, I don't however develop on or for Windows servers, all the servers I work with run Linux, running Windows does not hinder my development in any way and running on a "Unix Type" OS would not improve this.

Everything I need to develop applications is already avaliable within the current IDE, so why unbudle features to use the same feature from a different developer.

Not bundling PHP with the app is not an option and never will be, with less then 3% of the global market share even if there was a Mac version nusphere would continue to bundle PHP, in 90% of the cases it would not be installed on the host machine.

Yes they recommend you don't store passwords within the IDE but suggesting one OS isn't secure and a feature of another OS is secure is a very poor argument on your part. Millions on people, myself included have never had issues with viruses or any other type of data loss/corruption, XP and Vista, when properly patched and looked after are very secure and it would be incorrect of you to suggest without evidence that OSX or any feature of it is more secure.

UI choice is and always will be personal preference, one question though, did you think the same before Steve decided to bring out Aqua, will you think the same when he chooses to change the UI again. Vista is inconsistent in parts but for the complexity and size of the application along with the millions of people scrutinising it they did an exceptional job.

Windows apps are not stuck with being within a parent Window, there are apps that work as you prefer, a popular one being Dreamweaver. Apps on Windows are as they are because that is what people are used to using and what they have come to expect. It is a different way of working, Windows users retain knowledge of their application stack to increase productivity, why we alt-tab and you have expose, to seasoned Windows users Expose would offer no increase in productivity yet to some OSX users it is the second coming.

What are you trying to do with PHPEd that made it feel like you had your legs tied together, I use the app for 10 hours a day, minimum, I never feel that it hinders me, quite the opposite.

Regarding multiple monitors, yes, years ago I used to have multiple montiors, now I just use a single 24 inch display, I am just as productive with one then I used to be with 2 or 3 (thanks to PHPEd), I am however pushing my manager to buy me another 24 inch display.

Generally I like your posts bob and feel that your input here will help to improve PHPEd but sometimes you come off as a little agressive. I shouldn't have raised the question earlier, that was bad on my part, I was expecting more factual based responses.

If this topic should hint anything it is that Nushpere aren't going to develop a version for OSX anytime soon. Maybe, when Apple Computers (Ooops, Apple) decide to go after the the Business sector and support a version of their OS for more then 2 years there will be a reason for Nusphere to support the OS.

I'm really not trying to have a go at you, it is just that it gets mildly annoying constantly hearing from the minority that they made the right choice choosing apple, it is as if they need to seek reassurance.

...unless you're working with those parts of PHP that behave differently on Windows and Unix. As I said, there are far fewer cases than there used to be, but still....



One reason is because it means less secondary functionality for NuSphere to focus on. Imagine if Windows had such things as built-in ssh support and built-in rsync support: NuSphere would then have much more time to devote to core features, such as the debugger, the editor, etc. Of course, so long as the Windows version is maintained, NuSphere is stuck on this path.

The second reason, and really, the more important one, is that the other solutions often just work better than the basic versions built into PhpED. OpenSSH, for instance, isn't just YA SSH solution from a "different developer", it's the de-facto SSH implementation with which other implementations strive for compatibility. And since it's omnipresent at the system level, it's widely supported by applications. This means all the apps that use it support SSH in the same way, with the same features, and they all share a single SSH configuration file. I can go into any app that supports SSH on my machine, type in 'dev' for my server, and know that the app will be able to map that to the right IP address, with the right credentials, and with the right options for compression, etc. Going back to my previous post, you can also compare rsync with PhpED's built-in sync feature, or OS X's Terminal app with PhpED's terminal client (which isn't very useful to me; I instead paid extra to use SecureCRT, which has some of the missing features I require).



They wouldn't need to bundle it with the Mac version, as 100% of Macs have PHP installed. Indeed, this is the path NuSphere recommends for using PhpED under WINE. They'd obviously need to continue bundling with the Win version.



Say what? I never said anything about Windows' overall security, nor anything about virii or patches. All I said was that having the Windows version of PhpED remember your passwords wasn't secure. That's it, and that's a truth that even NuSphere states in the docs. How in the world you do you expand that to be a stab at Windows as an OS? Sheesh. The facts are:

1) For nearly 20 years, the Mac OS has had a feature call the Keychain that lets any application store passwords using a very secure, centralized, controlled-access facility provided by the system. Thus, when an application, say, an SFTP application, wants to store passwords, it can do so in a secure way without having to roll its own system for doing so. The Keychain most definitely is secure, and you can verify that yourself by looking through the source; indeed, many security experts have done just that. (It's open source.)

2) Windows does not have any feature equivalent to the Keychain. It just doesn't. This is not to say that the OS couldn't support one, and do so as securely as the Mac, because it obviously could. For whatever reason, though, MS has chosen not to copy this particular feature, and it's the sort of feature that would need to come from MS, not a third-party.

3) As a result of 2, there's no good way for apps to store passwords without rolling their own secure systems. Thus, you see things like NuSphere's recommendation to not use the "remember password" option in PhpED; you don't see such warnings in well-done Mac apps because they *can* store passwords securely without going to a lot of work.

4) Yes, developers *can* roll their own. However, then, you're in a situation of worrying about the security of lots of individual implementations rather than a single one, and many of those implementations will have been done by developers who don't know much or anything about creating truly secure code. More points of potential failure = more failures.



Huh? Did I/will I think the same about what?

I've been a Mac user since the '80s - way, way before OS X, and way before PC users accepted Windows as a realistic alternative to plain DOS. FWIW, I, and most longtime Mac users, felt that the Mac UI actually took some big steps backward in several areas with the advent of OS X. Many of the shortcomings have been fixed by now, with Leopard fixing quite a few itself (though introducing some more), but there are still some areas where the last classic Mac OS just plain worked better than OS X, or anything else for that matter. In other forums where it's appropriate, you can find me bashing some specific features of the Mac, so you can't say I'm blinded by SJ's, RDF.



Vista's a huge improvement, but that's beside the point. My comments on UI were directed at PhpED running in Windows rather than to Windows itself. I only use Windows for a small set of specific applications, so those apps are all I can speak about.



As I said, I only use a small set of apps on Windows (with DW not on the list), so I could easily be behind on what can be done. The fact, however, that apps like Excel, VisualStudio, and PhpED all use MDI, indicated to me that MDI was still "the way" on Windows. If not, I apologize - though, I have to ask then, why do these apps use it? Being able to freely, simultaneously use multiple windows without requiring a single parent window is huge in each of these app's genres, and yet.... In fact, I've sometimes wondered if their choice to use MDI in Windows was the reason it took MS so darn long to add usable multi-monitor support to Windows, since the basic paradigm precludes taking full advantage of multiple displays.

[I just did a little quick research. As can be seen here it seems the MDI UI is indeed sort of going away with MS saying, basically, that it's bad. But as can be seen here and here, MS is hardly consistent in its actions in this area.



People were also used to getting up to walk across the room to change channels on the TV, and they were used to watching TV with commercials intact, at a time dictated by the network studios. Yet, wireless remote controls and DVRs are obviously huge advances. Just because one is used to or expects a certain behavior does not mean that that behavior is ideal. Nor, too, does a behavior being new mean it's better than the behavior it replaced.



The Mac has had cmd-tab--a direct equivalent to alt-tab--for about twelve or so years now. It was one of MS's genuinely good ideas that Apple copied and improved upon. Expose is a newer, but separate, option. You can use whichever makes the most sense for your personal style and the particular situation.



Easy:

- Take full advantage of the space on a given screen to interleave multiple applications' windows such that I can see one or more windows from each app without keeping each app's windows collectively contained within a single rectangle that obscures everything else.

- Take full advantage of multiple monitors, again without unnecessarily obscuring anything else.

For example, in PhpED, I might want a class file that I'm working on open right in front of me, while I have a handful of parent class files open in other windows for reference. Or I might want to run through a global, multi-file search-and-replace in modeless fashion, with the search window open to the side on one screen, the results underneath it, and the source windows on the other screen. Or maybe I want to have the Output window full-screen and visible at the same time as I have its source file full-screen and visible. Or if I'm trying to debug an application, I might want four or five core files open, plus a set of debugger windows (Globals, Locals, and Immediate, for example), and be able to quickly step through the code while being able to see everything without having to do any window shuffling whatsoever. On one screen or multiple, I want to be able to do all these things (and many more), and do them such that I can see everything without unnecessarily blocking anything else that's underneath. I also want the OS's full window management functions available to handle all these windows. As it is now, PhpED can approximate some of these with floating windows and/or multiple instances, but both are very clunky and have lots of issues.



On my desktop, I've used nothing but multiple displays for the last 15 years or so, and could never, ever go back to just a single except for limited use (like with a laptop on the road). But it's interesting. In my workplace (95% Winodws), every employee gets two displays, but as I observe how they use them, even the power users (developers, network managers, etc.) only use their second display in a relatively limited fashion. I quickly realized that it's the MDI interface that is used by their apps. It severely hampers them but they just don't know it. I feel like I'm observing TV viewers back in the '80s enjoying standard-def 30" sets with stereo sound, who haven't a clue how much better TV will be when someday, they'll be able to skip the commercials and watch shows on their own schedule, in high-def and with digital surround sound better than anything in even their contemporary theaters. And yet, again, they have no clue that there's any sort of deficiency. (As to the quality of content available to them versus that available now, that's another debate.)

I recently saw a study that found the average office worker's productivity increased by 23% when they were given a second monitor. I have to wonder how many folks in the study used Windows, and what that number would have been had more Macs been included....

Don't get me wrong. I love PhpED, and with the debugger, especially, it's a huge productivity boost over the old way of doing things (using a straight text editor, and nothing else). In fact, its features are enough to probably match my productivity loss from its MDI... which leads me to dream of a PhpED without the MDI.



Who's slinging mud here?



While I do feel strongly that I've made the right choice, I've never stated that my choice is right for anyone else. The closest I've come is in my original post, where I just said, "the Mac is such a great PHP development platform," and that's pretty far removed from declaring choices for others. Heck, my statement doesn't even preclude Windows also being a great platform for PHP development. Since you asked, though, I've stated at least some of the reasons why I indeed do believe the Mac to be a better PHP development platform. My reasons aren't emotional, but are rather based on the technologies in the OS. And if you look at the presence of Macs in large gatherings of professional PHP developers (e.g., PHP conferences), you'll notice that there are typically a *lot* more Macs in use than its overall market share would predict - and there's a reason for that.

If there wasn't so much inflexibility from so many folks (or just two), I might mention I run PHPEd on my Linux box quite successfully almost every single day of my life.
But I'm about to be flamed about why my choices are so awfully wrong because they are not like either of yours.

Let me know where to send the cheese fellas

Randy

damn even this forum now has his "which is the better OS" discussion. main question is "is there going to be an OSX version" . Does it matter that OSX is an better OS? I just want an OSX version so that i can develop on my Mac

I didn't and will not start discussing with OS is better, not once in my post did I say anything to suggest which is better, it is all preference.

I do have two questions though.

1. What IDE do you currently use within OSX?
2. Wouldn't it be more sensible (given the age of this topic) to get your current IDE developer to create an app on par with PhpEd? Due to being OSX developers they will understand the OSX development paradigm and by default create an app covering most of bob's points, Nusphere would be starting from scratch on a new platform.

There are always posts in this forum about trying to implement a feature from another app, why not just do this the other way around.